


The Street Where You Live

by StarMaamMke



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: El starts to play matchmaker, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, teeth rotting fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-29 09:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12628275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarMaamMke/pseuds/StarMaamMke
Summary: Eleven starts spending more time at the Byers house, and starts to see things brewing between Hopper and Joyce.





	1. Chapter 1

The new routine started sooner than everyone could have imagined. Joyce, needing a distraction from her grief, began insisting that Hopper become a regular fixture at the Byers house. Not because she was lonely (she was, but she’d never admit it), but because Jane “El” Hopper needed an escape from the isolation that had been a staple of her days for so long.

“She needs some variety, Hop,” Joyce argued when he countered with Owens’s advice that the girl lay low for another year. “I’m not going to take her out on some joyride, I just want to give her a chance to spend time with someone more like - more like…-”

“A mother.”

Joyce nodded. “One night every week or so won’t hurt her, and I’d never let anything happen to her.”

Jim relented, recognizing the set in Joyce’s stubborn little chin, and then insistent tone in her soft, but stern voice. Her eyes were soft and pleading, but that didn’t mean she was asking, necessarily. Besides, he saw the value in her words, and there was wisdom Joyce could impart that Jim lacked the knowledge of to fully explain. Not without sacrificing his comfort level, anyway.

“So like a girl’s night?”

“Uh-huh. I can try my best to get her caught up on school so she’ll be ready next fall. I’m sure when Owens said a year, he wasn’t taking into account that classes start in September, not November. You can shave off a month or so.”

You will shave off a month or so, was what Jim heard - not that he was complaining. It was good to hear Bossy Joyce creep out of her grief cocoon to tell him what’s what - to see a little spark of her emerge from the wreckage of early November. He had seen a little of it the night of the Snow Ball, just a faint twinkle, but enough to assure him that he hadn’t been wrong to tell her that things would get easier every day.

“And you’ll help her through the…-” Jim trailed off as he struggled the find the words, his cheeks burning with the effort of what he was trying to convey. “- the girl stuff?”

Joyce snorted. “Yes, of course. I’ll throw her a First Moon party the second she gives me the go ahead.”

“Don’t be crass.”

______

So it was settled. Every Friday, Jim drove El to the Byers residence. In the interest of giving Joyce and the girl some space, Jim would concoct some sort of scheme to get Will (and sometimes Jonathan if he wasn’t already preoccupied with Nancy) out of the house.

Jim had been the quintessential jock in his glory days, so his first few outings with Will weren’t without hiccups. The boy politely went along with him on fishing expeditions, and to check the traps around the cabin, but most of the time, Will either appeared to be bored out of his gourd, or pensively sketching in a notebook. Jim, sensitive to the boy’s moods, soon dispensed with the stereotypical manly pursuits; Instead of checking for traps, they went for long walks in the woods, and Will would impart his wisdom on the flora and fauna, bringing along a plant identification manual. Jim, in turn, rediscovered his love of bird-watching, dusted off his old Audubon manual, and breathed a sigh of relief when Will dubbed his old hobby ‘cool’. Sometimes they would just go to the movies, or run errands. The pair would return several hours later, and Joyce always invited them to dinner. Jim learned early that refusing such an invitation was absolutely unacceptable, and quite impossible.

Later, he would quiz El about her day with Joyce. The first few weeks’ reports were strictly about school subjects. Jim glowed with pride at El’s obvious intelligence. Apparently, she had learned some basics at the lab, at least enough to know how to read and write before they took her from the Rainbow Room. Math was a breeze, and Joyce had gone from quizzing her with grade school primers, to Will’s textbooks, and then straight to Jonathan’s high school materials. The main focus now, was continuing to build her vocabulary.

“What do you ladies do for fun, though? It can’t all be books and learning. I hope she’s giving your genius brain a break every now and again,” Jim pressed, as they drove home one damp April evening.

El nodded. “She is trying to get me away from Soap Operas.”

“Thank Christ.”

“So we watch musicals. Joyce said with work and the boys, she doesn’t really get to watch what she wants, but she loves musicals, and they are better than horrible Erica Kane and her rich people problems any day.”

Jim smirked, musicals definitely weren’t his thing, but he remembered Joyce’s fondness for them, and it stirred something familiar and sweet within his chest.. “Okay, do you have a favorite?”

“My Fair Lady. Except it’s not really romantic, but we like Jeremy Brett, even if it’s not his real singing voice. Sometimes we watch the detective show, and he’s in it, only he’s not as young as he was in My Fair Lady, but Joyce said he’s aged like fine wine, whatever that means. Anyway, he solves crimes like you, but I think he’s smarter, but maybe that’s because he’s clean and has a nice voice.”

Jim bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Are you talking about Sherlock Holmes, Kid?”

El nodded. “Will tapes the show for her because it’s on when she works, so we have a bunch of episodes to watch.”

“She always did have a thing for detectives,” Jim replied, his mind wandering to the night of their Junior Homecoming, when he told her casually about his career aspirations - how her cheeks glowed with pleasure, and the way she bit her plump lower lip before taking him by the hand and leading him away from the dance floor to the band room.

“Okay?” El was wrinkling her nose at Jim, giving him one of her patented ‘I don’t get you’ looks.

The rest of the drive continued in companionable silence, until Jim turned onto the dirt road leading to the cabin and El started to hum. The melody was was sweet, with just a touch of longing in each trilling, slightly off-key note.

“What?” El asked when she caught Hopper’s quick and astonished glances.

“What are you humming?”

“It’s called ‘On the Street Where you Live’. It’s from My Fair Lady.”

“It’s pretty.”

“It reminds me of you.”

Jim put the Blazer in park and turned to El, with eyebrow raised. He could feel a tension headache forming between his eyes, and it occurred to him to just leave the comment where it was, and save himself a potential argument.

“Oh?” he ill-advisedly inquired, as he stepped out of the vehicle.

El hopped out of the Blazer and scurried to catch up with him as he headed up the path to the cabin. “Freddy sings it - he’s really dumb, but Joyce said Jeremy Brett isn’t really dumb so it’s okay to swoon- and he’s in love with Eliza but stuff gets in the way of him telling her, so he’s just content to be on the street near her house.”

Jim snorted as he unlocked the front door. “And that reminds you of me how, exactly?”

El pushed past him to get into the cabin, and Jim got the distinct impression that he had upset her. “What?” he called after her as she stormed to her room. She paused in front the door, her shoulder’s hunched and tense.

“We’re not stupid; isn’t that what you always say?”

“We’re not.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

Jim felt annoyance flare up in his chest and burn a path to his cheeks. “Excuse me, miss?” He planted his hands on his hips, hoping he appeared authoritative to the girl, though he knew deep down that he did not.

El turned. “The second we turn onto Joyce’s street, you change. When we walk into her house, you look like - like…-” she bit her forefinger and frowned, struggling to come up with the words. “-like you’re home.”

Jim pressed his lips into a thin line to keep from smiling at the mere mention of Joyce, his face burned hotter at the effort and he was aware that the kid could probably see him blush.

“That’s… that’s ridiculous!”

“No it’s not! What are you even waiting for?”

“She’s in mourning!” El’s mouth opened, and he could tell she had a question on her lips.

“‘Mourning’ is what you do when someone you loves dies - it means you’re too sad to even think about dating.”

“She thinks about Jeremy Brett.”

“That’s an actor, Kid!”

“And she thinks about you!”

Once, years upon years ago, when Jim was about seven years old, he had tried to kiss Joyce on top of the monkey bars in their old schoolyard. She thrust out her scrawny arms, placed her palms against his chest and pushed with all her might. He fell backwards and the impact of hitting the wood chip covered ground winded him for a solid minute before he started to cry from the pain. He had almost forgotten that breathless feeling.

“Th-that’s-”

“Don’t say ‘that’s ridiculous’ because it’s not!”

“Go to bed!”


	2. I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions at the doctor's office, courtesy of Rex Harrison's talksinging.

_H-hop…_

The quiet, stammering hesitancy in the voice on the other end of the line made Jim Hopper’s heart immediately hammer with rising panic.

“Joyce? What’s wrong? What happened?” He was already groping through a discarded pair of jeans for the keys to his Blazer. 

* * *

“Awful early in the morning for home-improvement, Joy-Joy. Weren’t you afraid of waking up the kids?”

Joyce, face pale and tight, shook her head from the passenger seat as she clutched at a dishtowel wrapped around her right upper-arm. The towel, usually a pale blue, had a blossom of crimson forming under Joyce’s fingers. 

“Jonathan is on a class trip to the State Capitol and Will is at the Wheelers.” 

“Hold that tight before you bleed to death!” Hopper scolded, his breath catching in his throat at the sight of her obvious distress. He was definitely more visibly upset than she was. Despite Joyce’s face -which had a pasty, bloodless pallor to it, making her large brown eyes appear even more haunted- she was uncomplaining, and had been since he tore into the Byers’s driveway and rushed into the kitchen to find her wincing as she tended to a large gash in her arm over the sink. She tripped in the shed while lugging out her box of tools, and had fallen on against a discarded plank of wood that had a jagged nail sticking out of it. She would’ve driven herself, she explained, but the amount of blood she was losing was worrying her. 

“Oh would you relax? It’s probably not as bad as it looks. They’ll give me a tetanus shot, bandage me up, and send me on my way.”

“Looks like stitches to me.”

Joyce’s tensed up at his words, sucking in her bottom lip as her eyes went glassy. “I don’t think so,” she squeaked faintly.

* * *

“Hey, you’re okay. It’s only four stitches, that’s nothing,” Hopper comforted as Joyce’s eyes filled up with panicked tears as she sat in a slouch on the examination table, unable to look at the doctor, who was preparing his tools. 

Joyce shook her head. “Why can’t they just let it scar up? I don’t mind.”

“Mrs. Byers, if the nail had merely impaled you, maybe - but this cut is deep and it’s long. This really is the best and only option to let it heal.”  Doctor Shaw’s voice was monotonous and indifferent with an edge of impatience. Hopper wanted to clock the man right in his perfect nose for his imperfect bedside manner.

“Okay,” Joyce conceded, her breath coming out in jagged little pants.

“Please calm yourself, it will make this a lot easier.”

“She’s having a panic attack, you jag,” Hopper shot back, unable to help himself.

“And you need to calm down to, or I will have you removed.”

Hopper decided to distract himself from the murderous rage that was boiling under his skin by distracting Joyce. He pulled his chair closer to her side, and reached out to take her hand; it was small, cold and clammy - trembling ever so slightly. 

“Look at me,” he urged as her gaze kept darting to Dr. Shaw and his preparations. Joyce turned and looked down at Hopper, managing a tremulous smile that did not reach her eyes. 

“Wanna hear a song?” he asked. 

“Oh, Hopper, you can’t sing.”

The observation made him chuckle, she wasn’t too terrified to burn him, which was a welcoming sign.

“No, but I watched this movie with the kid, and it had a guy who couldn’t sing, but they gave him the most songs. He wasn’t really nice either, and his songs were kind of mean, but there was one I liked–”

“She made you watch  _My Fair Lady._ ”

“She did. I liked it. Neither of those guys deserved Audrey Hepburn, but then again, who does?”

“Are you going to analyze the plot or are you going to sing to me?” Hopper chuckled again and kissed the back of her hand.

“Yeah, I’m getting to it. Anyway, the kid was going on and on about that schmaltzy song Freddy sings and how it applies to us.” 

Joyce blushed deeply at this, her pupils dilating slightly. Her breathing was no longer ragged and panicked. “Oh?”

“Yeah, and I see where she’s coming from, but I think this one is better, and I can actually carry the tune.”

The doctor approached, tools ready. Joyce’s head started to turn towards him, but Hopper was quick, rising to he could cup her cheek and lead her gaze to him.

 _I’ve grown accustomed to her face_  
_She almost makes the day begin_  
_I’ve grown accustomed to the tune that_  
_She whistles night and noon_

 _Her smiles, her frowns_  
_Her ups, her downs_  
_Are second nature to me now_  
_Like breathing out and breathing in_

 _I was serenely independent and content before we met_  
_Surely I could always be that way again_  
_And yet_  
_I’ve grown accustomed to her look_  
_Accustomed to her voice_  
_Accustomed to her face…_

His face was blazing with heat and his voice was cracking slightly towards the end, but it was worth it to see the softening look in her sweet eyes. Even though the doctor was working intently at sewing her up, she gave no indication of feeling it as she gazed at Hopper with a shy smile and shining eyes, her free hand coming up to stroke his bearded cheek.

“All done, Mrs. Byers.”

“Oh.” 

Hopper cleared his throat and rose to his feet. “Not so bad, was it?”

Joyce glanced at her arm as Dr. Shaw fixed a bandage over the wound. “The singing or the pain?”

“The pain, you can hold your opinions on my singing for another day.”

“I didn’t feel a thing.” She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him, the same dewy expression still fixed on her face. “At least not in my arm.”


End file.
